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Newswise — LOS ANGELES (May 20, 2014) – In the latest national report on organ transplant outcomes, patients receiving a new liver at the Cedars-SinaiComprehensive Transplant Center had the best one-year survival outcomes of all hospitals in the Los Angeles region, with 90% of liver transplant patients surviving beyond that important milestone. Patients receiving new kidneys at the medical center also did extremely well with 97 percent of them surpassing the one year bench mark.

“This is a very strong performance by our dedicated transplant teams and researchers at Cedars-Sinai,” said Andrew S. Klein MD, MBA, the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair in Surgery and Transplantation Medicine. “At the Comprehensive Transplant Center, we have a commitment to include care for the very sickest, high risk patients in need of a lifesaving organ transplant.”

The success with kidney transplant patients is particularly noteworthy given the number of very ill people who come to the medical center with a high probability of rejecting a donor organ because of high amounts of antibodies in their blood. Antibodies are protein molecules that are an important part of the body’s immune defense system, but can cause rejection of a transplanted organ. Stanley C. Jordan, MD, director of Kidney Transplantation and Transplant Immunology, is a prominent pioneer in designing treatment approaches that have significantly reduce the amount of antibodies, thereby reducing the risk of organ rejection.

“This latest survival report is a great encouragement. The fact that nearly all of our kidney transplant patients are thriving one year later indicates the research and new treatment protocols we are developing and using can make the most meaningful difference for the people we treat,” said Jordan.

The survival outcomes are rigorously compiled by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, a non-profit organization. The registry collects information from hospitals and donor procurement agencies across the nation to evaluate the scientific and clinical state of transplantation in the United States.

The lung transplant program at Cedars-Sinai is one of the few medical centers in Southern California with Medicare certification, and it accepts some of the sickest, most chronically ill lung patients from around the country. The latest one-year survival outcomes report is encouraging with nearly three-quarters of those transplanted doing well.

“We have assembled a great team of transplant surgeons and researchers here so we can offer patients in critical need of a lung transplant the highest level of care, with the expectation of the best possible outcomes for them,” said Paul Noble, MD, director of the Women's Guild Lung Institute at Cedars-Sinai and chair of the Department of Medicine.

Cedars-Sinai leads the nation in the number of adult heart transplants done annually, and nearly 90 percent of those patients are alive and doing well one year after getting a new heart according to the latest report.

“Organs for transplantation are such a precious resource, it is imperative that we continue to do all we can to maximize transplant success, improving the longevity and quality of our patients’ lives,” said Klein.